Unfair Competition & Class Actions

Growing pressure on sales practices includes DOJ probe. Case in Missouri is similar to another in Illinois set for trial next year. Damages have potential…

11/07/23

  Case raises questions about competitors using algorithms to set prices. Interested in the matter’s Sherman Act implications, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division is…

11/01/23

Investigation cites pre-WWII amendment to the FTC Act.   Marks at least second such pricing investigation this year. Both involve leading retailers and beverage companies.…

10/31/23

  MLB’s century-old antitrust immunity under assault from several directions.   Minor leagues teamed up after MLB severed affiliations, but Second Circuit ruled against them.…

10/31/23

  EC concerned Cardin and manufacturer have been colluding for years.   EC wants to know if companies engaged in “absolute territorial protection.” Companies allegedly…

10/31/23

Rubin talks about class action to eliminate an unfairness in the broader economy. Las Vegas, NV (October 25, 2023) — Jonathan Rubin, Partner and co-founder…

10/26/23

DOJ: Enabling competitive information swapping harms competition in this concentrated market.  Citing the harm it causes consumers and grocery stores, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division…

10/05/23

Signaling greater antitrust scrutiny in Europe, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft have earned designations as “gatekeepers” by the European Commission…

09/19/23

Anywhere Real Estate has settled out of antitrust class action litigation brought by home sellers claiming the National Association of Realtors, Anywhere, and other major…

09/13/23

More corporate directors have resigned in light of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s initiative to stop competitors from sharing corporate leadership. Two directors on…

09/13/23

Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc., USA have agreed to the terms demanded by the Department of Justice to resolve price-fixing charges against…

09/13/23

Settlement said to resolve anticompetitive concerns over critical drugs. The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from six states – California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York,…

09/08/23

Leading Antitrust Practitioners to Exchange Insights MoginRubin LLP Partner Jonathan Rubin is participating in a live Strafford webinar, titled “Class Certification: Guidance from Olean v.…

09/07/23

Company allegedly threatened to cut off distributors who sold rival products. A 2019 antitrust lawsuit against Berkshire Hathaway’s Johns Manville (JM) brought by rival calcium…

08/29/23

  Shareholders say Bezos and Execs Caused Them “Massive” Losses Two Amazon Inc. investors have filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Jeff Bezos and other senior…

08/29/23

Adding to its woes, investors claim losses because Live Nation did not disclose anticompetitive conduct. Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster (“Live Nation”) have successfully…

08/29/23

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE D.C. Appeals Court Affirms ATM Operators’ Class Certification in Antitrust Case Against Visa and Mastercard   Decision moves forward class actions brought…

07/26/23

European Commission fines companies for merging without approval.   Illumina, GRAIL consummate merger immediately after EC investigation began. Commission to decide whether the companies must…

07/13/23

  Judge deals blow to FTC.   U.S. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has revived Microsoft’s $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition. The FTC wanted to put…

07/11/23

  But examination of the deal continues in the US and UK.   The European Union competition regulators today conditionally approved Broadcom‘s purchase of cloud…

07/11/23

Would the combined company use improper tactics to foreclose competition? Review of the $43 billion biopharmaceutical merger of drug giant Pfizer Inc. and biopharmaceutical company…

06/29/23

Commission pauses major biopharma transaction involving drugs priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. As part of the Federal Trade Commission’s promised campaign to…

06/29/23

In Antitrust Law, MLB is in a League of Its Own In the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” Jimmy Dugan was the cranky…

06/28/23

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to advance a bill that would give smaller news organizations limited antitrust immunity to negotiate content licensing deals…

06/21/23

MoginRubin celebrates Senior Counsel Joy Sidhwa and her recent recognition by San Diego Business Journal as a Woman of influence in Law! Congratulations on your…

06/08/23

  MoginRubin has been ranked by The Legal 500 United States 2023 in the category of Antitrust and Civil Litigation/Class Action: Plaintiff.  Along with the…

06/08/23

The proposed “tie up” of the PGA Tour Inc. and LIV Golf Inc.’s operations may face scrutiny by the Department of Justice. The two organizations…

06/08/23

According to multiple news reports, the Department of Justice has revived its antitrust investigation against Alphabet Inc. and Google LLC over their Google Maps service…

03/30/23

Paris-based Sanofi S.A. announced a definitive agreement to pay $2.9 billion for diabetes drug manufacturer Provention Bio, Inc., a U.S.-based, biopharmaceutical company focused on intercepting…

03/28/23

U.S. Judge Cynthia M. Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has approved a settlement in an antitrust class action brought by direct pharmaceutical purchasers…

03/28/23

Judge: Case “vividly points to the need for class treatment.” Football fans have secured class certification of their lawsuit claiming that they were charged inflated…

02/17/23

Live Nation-Ticketmaster Dominance: “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash [Editor’s Note: Quoted phrases are titles of Taylor…

01/09/23

Berlin-based professor of law and economics, Armin Steinbach, filed a lawsuit against OPEC in early November, accusing the organization of being an illegal cartel that…

12/01/22

If you are an eyewear customer there is a very good chance you’re also at least an indirect customer of this company. Eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica…

12/01/22

Pharmaceutical company Teva is under investigation by the European Commission over their competition practices, which the commission says interferes with medication research. Teva held a…

12/01/22

In November of 2022, Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) announced it was filing a formal complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission’s Directorate-General…

12/01/22

At the start of October, an Italian administrative court ruled that Apple and Amazon no longer have to pay a $225 million fine levied by…

12/01/22

The European Commission is putting the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger on hold as they investigate whether the deal will reduce competition among PC gaming…

12/01/22

While the European Commission announced back in March that they would investigate Facebook, sources have leaked that it is ready to announce formal charges, according…

12/01/22

French competition authority, Autorité de la Concurrence, fined Apple a record $1.2 billion after their investigation found that Apple and its wholesale partners, Ingram Micro…

12/01/22

  Pfizer Inc. has acquired Global Blood Therapeutics, Inc. (GBT), a biopharmaceutical company whose leading product inhibits harmful medical conditions that lead to the relatively…

10/20/22

iRobot Corp. shareholders approved Amazon.com, Inc.’s $1.7 billion purchase of the Roomba maker on Oct. 17, while a pre-trial conference in a suit brought by…

10/20/22

Syngenta and Corteva used “loyalty programs” to cut off competition and inflate prices paid by farmers and consumers, suit says. The Federal Trade Commission and…

10/14/22

Would the deal usher in a new era of collaborative creativity or just a more powerful monopoly? Tech industry observers disagree on the potential impact…

10/03/22

A brief setback for Biden’s war on anticompetitive deals? The number of mergers globally in 2021, according to PwC, was the biggest on record with…

10/03/22

Trump appointees say things were better during his term. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan testified this week that despite being strapped for resources…

09/21/22

Google awaits service in three countries over digital ad conduct. One of the first victims of the rapid tectonic shift in how the world consumes…

09/15/22

Amazon dodges price competition with other e-commerce sites by forcing merchants into agreements that penalize them if their prices beat Amazon’s. That’s the crux of…

09/15/22

FTC Accuses Meta of Trying to Further Dominate Virtual Reality Ecosystem via Acquisition. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed suit against Meta Platforms, Inc. (fka…

09/01/22

Eleventh Circuit disagrees that the complaint was an inadequate “shotgun pleading” against Google, YouTube and Alphabet. Handing Google LLC a reversal of fortune, the Eleventh…

09/01/22

  Plaintiffs say Oracle collects and sells private data without citizens’ consent. A class action complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco claims Oracle…

08/29/22

The fate of the $2.2 billion Penguin Random House (PRH) / Simon & Schuster (S&S) merger remains with U.S. District Judge Florence Pan who presided…

08/26/22

U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor of Alabama has approved the settlement of antitrust litigation brought against Blue Cross Blue Shield Association by large employers…

08/10/22

The Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit seeks an injunction against Meta Platforms Inc.’s acquisition of Within Limited. Their effort is to challenge Meta’s actions to dominate…

07/28/22

Apple Operating an Illegal Monopoloy in Tap-and-Pay Market, Suit Says The convenience of the tap-and-pay mobile wallet model is a feature consumers increasingly enjoy for…

07/21/22

Independent Uber and Lyft drivers filed a class action against the rideshare pioneers last month alleging they are violating California antitrust and consumer protection law.…

07/08/22

Dan Mogin of MoginRubin LLP and Travis Miller, General Counsel at Assent Compliance Inc., appeared on the Emerging Litigation Podcast to discuss a range of…

07/05/22

At the end of April 2022, announcing President Joseph Biden’s latest round of federal judicial nominations, the White House hailed the nominees not only as…

06/03/22

As tuna customers continue the fight against major tuna companies, Partner Jonathan Rubin weighs in on the potential effects the case may have on future…

06/01/22

MoginRubin LLP is proud to announce that it continues to be one of the top antitrust law firms in the country, and is among the…

05/30/22

The European Commission has adopted new Vertical Block Exemption Regulations (‘VBER’) accompanied by new Vertical Guidelines, which will allow, subject to conditions, agreements between companies…

05/27/22

Court Says Licensing Agreement Does Not Bar App Maker Litigation A federal judge has rejected Apple Inc.’s interpretation of its app licensing agreement in the…

05/23/22

A federal court jury in Denver returned not guilty verdicts in the government’s criminal case against DaVita Inc. and its former CEO, in which the…

05/18/22

Company served with a new lawsuit amid fresh calls to unwind. When concert promoting giant Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., and ticketing giant Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc.,…

04/08/22

Amazon.com Inc. started the month of March with two suits on opposite coasts challenging the rules it imposes on the platform’s merchants which prohibit them…

03/25/22

Recommitted to fighting anticompetitive consolidation, the government could still challenge the deal. The Federal Trade Commission’s silence last week on Amazon’s acquisition of MGM –…

03/23/22

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission have launched investigations into whether Alphabet/Google and Meta/Facebook illegally conspired to hold their dominant…

03/17/22

The House Judiciary Committee has informed Attorney General Merrick Garland of “potentially criminal conduct” on the part of Amazon and its top executives. Detailed in…

03/17/22

DOJ Official’s Remarks Seen as ‘Signal’ Government Will Use Criminal Charges to Fight Illegal Monopolies Remarks made by the DOJ’s Richard Powers at a March…

03/17/22

Finding “no competition concerns,” antitrust regulators at the European Commission yesterday (March 15) approved Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM and its collection of some…

03/16/22

Data continues to play key role in fight against anticompetitive mergers. Citing its potential to abuse the health insurance claims data it would amass, and…

03/10/22

The Federal Trade Commission and the Rhode Island Attorney General are using both administrative measures and litigation to stop the proposed merger of Lifespan Corp.…

02/18/22

You know things are bad when the Russian government says you’re abusing your power, acting surreptitiously, and restricting adjacent markets. But that’s the message Moscow…

02/16/22

A cellular franchise owner has sued T-Mobile in U.S. District Court in Connecticut for “fraudulent, predatory, and anti-competitive conduct.” Saying it was one of the…

02/16/22

Facing challenges from antitrust enforcers on three continents, U.S. microchip giant Nvidia Corp. has called off its acquisition of British computer processing designer Arm Ltd.,…

02/16/22

Marking the first time in decades that it has sued to block a defense industry merger, the Federal Trade Commission on Jan. 25, 2022 filed…

01/31/22

  “Privileging the wealthy and disadvantaging the financially needy are ‘inextricably linked.’” Student recipients of need-based financial aid brought a class action against 16 elite…

01/20/22

The European Commission has fined UBS, Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Credit Suisse €344 million ($390 million) for participating in a Foreign Exchange spot-trading cartel. UBS,…

01/08/22

We are proud to announce that Partner Jennifer Oliver has been selected by The National Law Review as a 2021 Go To Thought Leader in…

01/05/22

We would like to thank our friends, colleagues, and wonderful Team for another incredible year. As the pandemic continued to impact businesses, MoginRubin remained committed…

12/14/21

Partner Daniel Mogin was quoted today in an FTCWatch article titled, “As FTC examines supply chain woes, don’t expect much action,” addressing his thoughts on…

12/14/21

MoginRubin is honored to be selected as a FINALIST for the 2022 Legalweek Leaders in Tech Awards in the category: Innovations in Diversity and Inclusion.…

12/03/21

Thirty-three U.S. representatives and senators, all Democrats, have asked the Department of Justice to investigate the proposed merger of two media giants, Discovery Inc. and…

12/03/21

We are proud to announce that Daniel Mogin, our Managing Partner, has been selected to the Top Antitrust Lawyers of 2021 list by the L.A.…

11/17/21

We are proud to announce that MoginRubin Partner Jennifer Oliver has been selected as a Finalist by the San Diego Business Journal for their 2021…

10/19/21

On October 19th, Partner Jennifer Oliver will be presenting at the American Bar Association’s webinar,  “CCPA Thus Far: Enforcement.” Join Ms. Oliver and Jeewon Serrato,…

10/08/21

The Federal Trade Commission has withdrawn its 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines and accompanying commentary to “prevent industry and judicial reliance on unsound economic theories” that…

10/05/21

Partner Jennifer Oliver will be presenting at the NetDiligence® Cyber Risk Summit in Santa Monica, CA on October 5th regarding Data Privacy Enforcement. Learn more and register…

09/27/21

Partner Jennifer Oliver was quoted today in the Daily Journal, regarding the loopholes in the current merger laws, and how they could potentially mask monopolies.…

09/23/21

MoginRubin Partner Jonathan Rubin will be a Keynote speaker at the upcoming National ATM Council (NAC) Convention. The three day live and in-person event will…

09/23/21

Partner Jonathan L. Rubin was quoted in the The New York Times’ coverage of Judge Gonzalez’s recent order following the bench trial where she dismissed…

09/10/21

The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act requires companies and individuals to report large transactions so the government has time (30 days, or more these days) to investigate any…

09/09/21

Germany’s Federal Court of Justice has explained its determination that the so-called “narrow price parity clauses” used by Booking.com until February 2016 violated competition law.…

08/31/21

German-based leisure airline company, Condor Flugdienst, says competitor Eurowings Discover, Deutsche Lufthansa’s leisure unit, seeks to use “code sharing” agreements with its sister companies as…

08/31/21

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation continues its antitrust campaign against the tech industry. CNN reported on Aug. 17 that the agency’s proposed new rules…

08/31/21

The European Commission is investigating whether Illumina’s decision to complete its acquisition of cancer test manufacturer Grail — despite the Commission’s ongoing investigation into any anticompetitive effects of the deal — breaches the “standstill obligation” under Article 7…

08/31/21

MoginRubin LLP is proud to announce that Managing Partner Dan Mogin was chosen as a Best Lawyer for the 28thEdition of The Best Lawyers in…

08/19/21

Partner Jonathan L. Rubin was quoted in Global Competition Review following the recent disappointing #JPML ruling to consolidate all of the digital ad cases against #Google to a federal New…

08/12/21

LeafBrands, maker of the original sandwich cookie, Hydrox, represented by MoginRubin LLP, has asked the FTC to investigate the anticompetitive conduct by Mondelez Inc., maker…

08/09/21

“Today’s ruling marks a significant step toward loosening the grip of Visa and Mastercard on the market for ATM network services and promises to benefit…

08/05/21